The present invention relates to a method and a knitting machine for production of knitted goods with horizontal stripe patterns.
Most known knitting machines for the production of knitted goods with horizontal stripe patterns, in particular large circular knitting machines, have striping attachments having thread changing devices provided with a specific number, e.g. four, thread fingers, so that on each knitting system formed from a knitting point and a thread changing device one or more of four different, in particular differently coloured, threads can be selectively inserted into the knitting tools (e.g. DE 27 10 045 A1, DE 28 05 779 A1, DE 31 29 724 C2, DE 195 11 949 A1).
However, there is frequently a requirement for knitted goods with horizontal stripe patterns that can be produced from five or more different threads per system. To produce such horizontal stripe patterns, thread changing devices that have five or more thread fingers, for example, can be provided. However, as a result of this there is a corresponding increase in the width of the thread changing devices measured in the knitting direction, and therefore either the number of knitting systems that can be attached to the periphery of a circular knitting machine, for example, must be reduced or, if a large number of feeder systems is still desired, a thread changing device cannot be assigned to all the knitting systems present. While it would be conceivable to configure the thread fingers and associated parts to be thinner than usual, this is not possible to a sufficient degree on structural grounds and would, moreover, be associated with increased wear and lower operating reliability.
Therefore, circular knitting machines have already become known (EP 1 612 311 B1) that have striping attachments with two or more thread changing devices arranged directly one after the other in the knitting direction such that threads delivered by one and/or the other thread changing device can be selectively processed on the very same knitting system. An advantage of this arrangement is that a thread changing device with only a few thread fingers can be attached to each individual knitting system. However, there also results here the undesirable effect that when using large circular knitting machines with a high number of systems the width of a thread changing device is larger than the width of the system, even if each thread changing device can only deliver three or four threads.